


Second's Not the Same

by bohnem990



Series: You Were Red [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-01
Updated: 2016-05-01
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:49:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bohnem990/pseuds/bohnem990
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sidney Crosby wears a wrist cover.  </p><p>His mother bought it for him, brown supple leather that was ‘classic’, she said. She looked at him with pity but his father looked at him with pride and Sidney still isn’t sure which one is worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second's Not the Same

**Author's Note:**

> The title for this is from the Halsey’s song Is _There Somewhere?_ and if it’s not perfect then I don’t know what is. I got screamed at from two different directions to make this verse into a reality, so here is another slice of this crazy ride we’re about to go on. 
> 
> Everyone seems to think that Sidney Crosby is a delicate flower who’s married to hockey and allergic to feelings. I came here to tell you that he’s _not._
> 
> In case you didn’t know this verse is based off the tumblr post where you get a tally marks on your wrists when you fall in love. Red mean unrequited, black means the love is returned, and a scarred mark means they’ve died. (I’ve added another mark color that hasn’t been introduced yet, but when it is all hell is going to break loose.)

Sidney has a thing for smiles; he knows this because he has a neat row of pitiful red marks hidden behind the wrist cover he’s owned since he was fifteen and he asked for it. His mother bought it for him, brown supple leather that was ‘classic’, she said. She looked at him with pity but his father looked at him with pride and Sidney still isn’t sure which one is worse. 

Beau is smiling at him now, one arm around Sid’s neck and beaming like the sun. There’s a reason they call him Sunshine and the drunker he gets the more he touches Sid. Sid is careful not to look. 

It’s another superstition he has: don’t look at people whose smile remind him of home. Don’t look at smiles that smell like fresh ice. Don’t look at smiles that scream Stanley Cup Champions. Don’t look at smiles who touch you when the corners turn up. Don’t look at smiles. Ever. Period. Full stop. 

Sidney learned these lessons the hard way and he has red tallies to show for them. 

The first tally ran red ink across his wrist when he was eighteen. Before then, Sidney had assumed he would never mark and he was okay with that. He’s married to hockey, that what his teammates say, and Sidney wishes it were true. At least then the distinctive Sidney Crosby wrist cover would be hiding the truth and not a lie. 

The club they’re in has gone vaguely unnoticed by upper class Pittsburgh, if Pittsburgh had an upper class. The women are in strappy dresses and tall heels with guys wearing the same blue button up shirt from Macy’s. There is a blonde with long hair and pink glossed lips tracking Beau’s movements, but he’s still attached to Sidney. 

He has to pry the boy off with gentle hands and push him towards Horny. “Get him laid,” Sid says and nods towards the blonde at the bar. 

Beau is one drink too many and laughs, turning his megawatt smile towards Sidney again. “Good eye.” 

“Yeah, that’s what they pay me for, bud,” Sidney rolls his eyes and doesn’t focus on Beau’s smile. “Go get ‘em.” 

Horny and Beau leave, and Sid feels like he can breathe again. Smiles make him anxious. 

“Sid get Beau laid?” Geno sits down in Beau’s place in their booth, thighs and shoulders pressing together as he slides a fresh beer in front of Sid. 

Sidney shrugs and wraps his fingers around the frosted glass in front of him, trying not to think about all of the points of contact between them. “Maybe.” 

There’s a red tally on Sidney’s wrist that belongs to Geno. It arrived uninvited on his wrist second overall, after the first neat mark that belongs to Mario Lemieux. The first night Geno arrived in Pittsburgh he had dinner at Mario’s house, terrible English burning Sid’s ears and a soft smile on his boyish face that had Sidney utterly charmed. They were terrible at words but they could both speak hockey and they sat for an hour after dinner with their heads together and a playbook between them. Geno fed him smiles and their fingers brushed and Sidney’s heart was pounding. Eventually Gonch came to take Geno home and Sid retreated to the guest house in the backyard. When he took his wrist cover off to shower there was a new red tally on his wrist.

The first mark came in when he was fresh faced and had officially made it to the big show. It belongs to Mario Lemieux and there’s really no explanation needed. 

“Maybe,” Geno parrots and tracks his eyes over to Beau and the girl, leaning into her space like he had been to Sid and smiling. It’s a thousand dollar smile and his personality is infectious and Sid knew if he let himself, his wrist would earn mark number five for Beau. But it won’t, because he doesn’t want it. 

He wants Geno instead. He wants Geno whose thigh is pressed in a solid line against his and whose arm is draped across Sid’s shoulders. Geno has always been close, taking up more of Sid’s space than anyone else and Sid has never told him no. How could he when he was so in love that he ached with it? 

So Sid sits quietly and soaks in the chaos around him. Tanger and Fleury are arguing about microbrews and stout beer. Daley is fitting in nicely with Oli and Lovejoy. The team is happy, they’re winning and everything feels right. 

Except Sidney’s wrist, but that’s a different story. It’s kind of his fault he falls for hockey players. Hockey _players._

The third mark on Sidney’s wrist etched it’s way across his skin in 2009. He had the cup raised above his head and the stadium smelled like victory and Flower got to have his cake and eat it too. It was then, as Flower took his lap with the cup, one of Sidney’s oldest friends on this team, that he wondered for the first time what Flower tasted like. He wondered if his skin would taste like the honey tea he drank before games and what face he made when he came. He wanted to suck Flower off in the crease with the ice against his back and Sid’s heat against his front. Flower’s smile screamed Stanley Cup Champions and Sidney was ashamed. 

In the years after that Sid has found himself apologizing to Vero in passing. She never knows what it's for and Sid hopes to God she never finds out. 

“We made out of round one,” Geno grins as he raises his glass and takes a long pull. There is a sleek line of marks on Geno’s wrist and Sid has to close his eyes against it. Geno falls in love like breathing and Sidney doesn’t even have the satisfaction of saying that Geno is a serial dater. Because he’s not. Geno dates to get married. Geno dates to have children and dog and a white picket fence. Geno dates tiny Russian women who can cook him food that remind him of home. All of Geno’s marks are black, whereas all of Sid’s are red. Well, all except one. 

Drunkenly, Geno had confessed that the first mark on his wrist, the only one that’s red, belonged to Ovi. They were sixteen and naive and handies from your road roommate wasn’t only a thing that happened in America. Sid takes solace in the fact that they both have a red tally for him. 

Ovi’s mark came in last, violet and bitter and reminiscent of fire. That’s how Sid feels when he sees him, like the burning embers at the end of a bonfire that sizzle out before they become anything of themselves. Sidney loves Ovi because he hates him and there’s a thin line between the two, especially when Alex smiles after he slams Sid into the boards. That’s when Sid knew he was screwed. 

The wrist cover is his security blanket; it gives him a reason to keep his eyes away from the shame he holds there. It’s a burden, to love this much and this hard with nothing in return. It’s empty, a big house to go home to at the end of the night that means nothing. Even the burn of ice beneath his skates tastes bitter sometimes with no one to share his victory with. 

“Yeah, we did,” Sidney agrees and tips his head up towards Geno’s smiling face and he can feel himself falling deeper into the abyss. 

“Make all the way.” 

Sid smacks Geno hard in the chest and scowls. “Don’t fucking say shit like that.” 

“Calm, Sid.” Geno is still smiling, infuriatingly so, and wraps his fingers around Sid’s wrist. 

There’s a new black mark on Geno’s wrist and suddenly Sid’s chest feels tight. He deals with Geno’s girlfriends and he thinks he deals with them well. He hates being blindsided, he hates seeing a new tally on Geno, glaring black ink never directed at him. 

He pulls away from Geno, separating their thighs and raises his beer to his lips and takes a long pull. Fuck this; he’s going home. 

“I think I’m just going to -” except Sid can’t go anywhere because Geno is sitting at the end of the booth and the air is much too thick right now. 

“Where are you going?” 

He waves his hand around vaguely, gesturing in the air, and slumps back in his seat. 

“Who’s the new girl?” Sid asks, trying to keep his voice level. He’s been here before, he’s always been here. 

“No girl, Sid.” 

“What.”

Geno kisses him. There’s no warning and he tastes like hops. It’s sweet relief but the cruelest punishment because he has this now. Sid has this memory and he’s going to have to box it away in the spank bank and pretend to be only Geno’s friend for the rest of his life. Geno is going to marry a tiny Russian woman and Sid will stand in their wedding and he’ll probably cry when they cut the cake, not for them but for himself. 

Geno kisses him and Sidney is very, very confused. 

“Fucking finally!” Flower yells and slams his fist down on the table. Sid jerks away from Geno and whips his head around. He hopes no one saw that, he hopes this isn’t going to be on Deadspin. 

Sid licks his lips. “Finally?”

“Finally,” Geno smiles. It’s soft and it looks like it’s reserved for Sid, but Sid has never seen this look on Geno’s face before. 

“I see? One mark you have belongs to me now, yeah?”

 _One_ mark. Oh god. 

He closes his eyes as he peels off the leather cuff, his stupid naive marks brazen for the whole team to see. When he opens his eyes the second one is black. Sid lets out the breath he was holding. 

“I love you,” he whispers, smiling up at Geno. 

“Who these marks all for?” Geno is frowning, like he’d doesn’t understand the play, and Sid can laugh at his marks for the first time since he’s had them. 

“Let’s not talk about it.” 

“Damn, Croz has game!” Beau catcalls, smiling in Sidney’s direction with the blonde from earlier clinging to his arm. 

For the first time since Beau became a Penguin, Sidney doesn’t turn his eyes away.

**Author's Note:**

> Come join me on [tumblr](http://chicago-runsonduncan.tumblr.com)!


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